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her accession—and, indeed, even before it—was the celebrated Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, the direct ancestor of the present Marquesses of Exeter and Salisbury. Cecil was a man of the most consummate ability and prudence. He was a man much under the influence of religion, yet totally free from fanaticism—a combination very rarely found in the sixteenth century, and not very common at any time. Like Elizabeth herself, he had outwardly conformed in Mary's days; but in his case, as in hers, nobody doubted that his real attachment was to the Reformed religion. Under his influence, which coincided to a great extent with the natural bent of her own disposition, the religious revolution under Elizabeth was neither so rapid nor so violent as that under Mary. In the first month of her reign very little outward change was effected, and several of Mary's old Ministers kept their seats at the Council Board. Yet it is clear that everybody felt that mighty changes were impending; else why, though the Ritual was apparently unaltered, did the bishops, with only a single exception, steadily refuse to assist at the coronation of Elizabeth? There is, in fact, observable a very curious similarity between the beginning of the two reigns of Mary and of Elizabeth. The earliest steps of the two queens were taken in almost parallel lines, though in opposite directions. Thus, just as Mary waited for the meeting of Parliament before she resorted to revolutionary measures, so also did Elizabeth; but both in the interval put a stop to unlicensed practices, and prohibited unauthorised innovations in Church services. Elizabeth's action was, however, as might be expected, in all this more moderate than Mary's; for while the latter had at once, and without legal authorisation, caused Edward's Prayer-